


Too Many Times

by flyingcrowbar



Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Gore, Crossover, F/M, Groundhog Day, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-07
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-02-07 21:18:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1914195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flyingcrowbar/pseuds/flyingcrowbar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Private Jackson is stuck in a time loop. He relives the same day over and over again as his fellow soldiers die as they always do. And Captain Chase is no different, no matter how many times he tries to save her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It doesn’t matter if it’s the first or the millionth time - everything is the same.

In three seconds, that sergeant will be pulled into the sand by a Mimic ( _there he goes…_ ) who takes out a whole platoon in a single, quick-as-fuck swoop. Others kill it - they always kill it, but too late - always too late.

The helicarrier above spins out of control, the sound of the blades thudding in his chest like a second heartbeat, and crashes nearby, crushing a whole squadron in a final cloud of sand.

Percy remembers to close his mouth as a shower of blood rains onto his face but still tastes the iron mixed with the salty water from the beach. It’d be nice if he could ever get used to the screams of the dying, and he tries to suppress the bubble of bile threatening to throttle him, so he stares straight ahead and trudges forward.

His Jacket hisses and thumps with every footfall, and he has to move fast or else that Mimic is going to get him like last time. Or was it the time before? It all blurs together by now.

War smells like the Fourth of July - and no matter how many times Percy lives this day, he always remembers running around in the empty street as a kid, holding a sizzling sparkler above his head as he dances in the lights that flicker on in the coming darkness. Watching that sparkler, that burns a black dot in his eyes even after he takes them away, he laughs and laughs and when that one snuffs out, he lights another. Except now he’s not laughing. The gunpowder, the humidity, the rockets exploding all around him in a drizzle of light and smoke… Just like home. If he closed his eyes, he could probably convince himself otherwise.

Four, five, six steps - Percy revs his shoulder cannons and blows a Mimic to bits. The rounds ring like his head is a gong, He should be wearing his helmet but he doesn’t want it anymore, not after he realized if he dies he’ll just wake up in his bunk yesterday  _again_. Exactly like a video game - an infuriating video game with no checkpoints when he gets farther than ever. And if he’s lucky (which he’s not), he’d live.

Why he got these powers? He doesn’t know. It’s probably the only smartest thing he’s ever done, not asking that question. It wastes time; time - in hindsight - he has a lot of.

So here he is and he’s lost count of how many days he’s repeated; seeing the same battle, the same soldiers dying once and again. Probably a lifetime gone by, and he’s frozen in place.

Does it really even matter now, trying to win?

When he punches a Mimic with a metal fist, it feels good for a half-second. But that second vanishes when he knows he’s going to have to do it all over again.

It shouldn’t matter, this battle. It’s pointless.

Except it does matter. It matters for  _her_.

And, just like before, he sees her again.

She emerges from the wreckage, her blonde hair wild and wind-swept, and her Jacket hums to life as she blasts a Mimic with a shotgun, following another’s quick attack with a rocket blast.

The Goddess. That’s what they call her. Her face is on every poster, every commercial, every possible surface to support the troops - the Rosie the Riveter of this war, beautiful and fierce. The warrior every soldier wishes to be.

She’s hard - hard in her eyes, her jaw, probably even the bobby pins that hold back her curls are as sharp as jagged steel - but not hard enough. Not for the spear-like tentacle aimed for her back.

Percy has seen it enough times to know what comes next, and he pulls her away just before the Mimic strikes. He shoots, and hits, and the Mimic wails in death and blood covers the both of them.

“I can’t let you die on me again,” Percy says. He doesn’t know why he said it, why this time. Of all the times he’s saved her, he had never said those words.

“What?” she asks, but he doesn’t have time to respond. She hefts her guns, staring at him like he’s an enemy. “What do you mean ‘again’?”

But her voice is drowned out by a thunderous groan and they look up to see the wreckage peeling open and a Mimic crawling out, whipping its arms around like blades. Together they shoot and the Mimic explodes, its flesh smelling like rotten but crispy bacon.

He pulls her into the downed ship and for a moment the outside world is muted into a low, horrible hum.

Percy doesn’t need a watch to know what time it is, but he takes what few moments he has to spare to catch his breath. The sweat on his brow is impossible to wipe off when an exo-suit is in the way.

“You have it,” she says. Her blonde hair is streaked with black and red, blood of enemy and friend mixed together.

“Have what?” he asks, watching the beach for the right moment to push forward. “We need to move in seventeen seconds or we’re toast.”

“You’re resetting, aren’t you?” It’s not a question.

He tears his eyes away from the battle to meet her’s. They are solid, unmoving. It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun. How does she know? How could she possibly? Every time he had tried to explain himself to someone - anyone - they either lock him up in the brig or tape his mouth shut (sometimes both). There’s no possible way...

“How many times?” she asks.

Like the sparkler, her death is burned into his eyes. On her back with a hole in her chest - half of her face melted off - slumped against the ridge of a trench, a trickle of red spilling from her mouth and nose - screaming in a pool of blood, her insides on the outside - dragged across the sand, a Mimic too strong for clawing fingers - torn in two like a Christmas cracker. No matter how many times he blinks, her face lingers.

“Enough,” he says.

She bristles. To her, it’s a story - to him it’s reality.

Percy hears the distant boom of a claymore and knows it’s their cue, knows because he’s learned by now.

“You need to find me - yesterday.” Her words are barely a blip on his radar. He can taste the adrenaline, sharp and thick at the back of his throat. He hears the screech of a Mimic and it’s too late.

“We need to move!” Percy shouts.

“My name is -” she begins.

But there’s no more time - they’ve come. They waited too long. A Mimic slaps in the sand, making a beeline towards them, too fast for Percy to get a lock on to shoot. He keeps missing. He hasn’t done it this way before. This is different.

There’s a hand on his shoulder and he turns to look into her gunmetal eyes again - only to be looking down an actual one.

Her fingers tighten around the trigger -

The Mimic is here -

It rips into the ship -

Metal is screaming -

Percy is too -

Her voice is the only thing that he hears. “Chase.”

Then she pulls the trigger.

The gunshot still echoes in his ears, or maybe it’s just his brain playing tricks, but Percy rockets out of his bed like he does every morning, right back where he started, and smacks his head on the beam supporting the bunk above.

Groaning, he cups his eyebrow in his hands, already swollen and hot as usual, and the memory of her comes back to him again.

He throws on his pants that were crumpled on the floor, pulls a tank top over his head, and marches out of the dorm and into the hallway, barefoot and uncaring that he is.

 _Chase_. Both her name and a command. He has less than twenty-four hours to convince her before it’s too late.

By now she doesn’t know what’s coming, she doesn’t know the massacre waiting for them in France, the death that is surely coming for her. But he does, and that’s all he needs.

Instead of turning right, toward certainty, predictability; he goes left - toward the unknown, toward a place he’s never been. Finding her before all of this started wasn’t even an option before (didn’t even cross his mind, to be honest).

His barefeet clap on the cold cement floor as he makes his way through the empty munitions room, following the sound of whirring machines and creaking metal around a corner.

The hallway opens up and before him is a training room, complete with spinning windmill-like claws, moving like the Mimics do. It’s a shooting range, complete with bulletholes littering the opposite wall, like a Monet of destruction. He’s on the very edge of it, safe behind a painted line saying  **DO NOT CROSS**.

Despite the warning, right in the middle of it all, there she is.

It’s different seeing her here amongst a different kind of chaos, balancing herself only on her palms while the rest of her body is as flat as a sword. She’s strong, focused, totally zen. It’s as if she’s reading the movements of the module, learning the Mimics for what they are. She’s a strategist, a reader. This is where she belongs.

And despite all logic, Percy steps into the arena to join her.

He strides forward, watching the claws that move of their own accord, spinning and jutting out into the room, swinging to and fro, ready to knock him into oblivion.

She hears him coming and turns her head, gently lowering herself to the floor and rising herself chest like a mermaid on the rocks. Her gaze is unknowing, unassuming. She doesn’t know who he is, and she doesn’t seem to care.

“What do you want?” she asks, her voice flat as she stands.

If she fears for his life, she doesn’t show it.

“Your name is Chase,” he says, side-stepping a near-blow.

“And?” she asks.

“You told me to come find you. Tomorrow.”

A glow blooms on her features, like hope suddenly sprouted there. Whatever she knows, he’s willing to bet is the key to their survival.

He stares at her, really looks at her (how tall, and lean, and perfectly cut her arms are) and smiles.

A model-Mimic screeches and spins toward him -

Then sudden pain - sudden black - and he hits his head on the bunk.

The day begins...  _again_. 


	2. Live. Die. Repeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize I didn't share it here when I originally posted it!

Annabeth only knows war. It’s the last thing left. Strangely, she finds it to be the only place where she can feel peace. But any soldier would know peace is the calm before the storm, and Annabeth isn’t just any soldier. She’s  _the_  soldier, the face of the human race rebelling against alien invaders. She knows there can be no peace, so long as the Mimics are alive.

But this kind of war, the kind that broils her gut, is the only kind of war that makes sense. It’s rule, it’s order. There is kill or be killed. There is no compromise, not with these things. Somehow war makes life seem a lot less complicated.

She practices for the Mimics by doing yoga in the arena, balancing only on her hands as the simulation Mimics grind their gears all around her. She has lived this day many times - preparing, training, perfecting. A soldier’s job is never done, not until six feet under. She learns from the arena, almost needs the arena. She breathes, keeping her body level with the ground, perfectly balanced. No one dares use the shooting range while she’s there, not because they might hit her, but because she will hit them.

Her forearms ache, tickling with the sweat that beads on her skin, and she shudders only when she lowers herself to the floor and breathes again. She arches her back inward and rears herself up, hardened from the inside out. Her curls are pulled away from her face, showing off the long, deep scar sprouting from the top of her head to just above her brow. The scar is as straight as the line on her lips, the sharpness of her gaze.

The scar is proof of what she lost, in more ways than one.

But her day is interrupted the moment a stranger walks in. He storms through the DO NOT CROSS barrier and marches directly for her.

Annabeth gets to her feet, anger flaring.

“What do you want?” she asks, keeping her expression steady.

“Tomorrow on the beach,” he says, breathless, as he completely ignores her question, “within five fucking minutes, we die with every other soldier.”

His eyes are the same she’d seen in the mirror a million times. It gives her pause. She straightens her back. “Tomorrow, you mean -”

“I have what you had.”

The scar on her head throbs, a figment of her imagination she’s sure, but there’s no other way he could know.

It’s bizarre being on the other side of this. For the equivalent of forty years, she had lived inside a time loop, replaying the battle over and over again, always dying, always waking up in the drop ship just before the fall and living through the day once more.

“You can -”

“Reset the day, yeah, yeah, we’ve been through this before. Can we fast forward to the part where you train me?”

She looks him up and down. Training? He’s going to need a lot more than that. He’s wearing his fatigues but they’re so pressed and clean, it looks like they have never seen a minute of combat. However, she doubts that’s true at all.

“What’s your name, private?” she asks.

“Percy Jackson. And I already know who you are.”

“How many times have we gone through this?”

“Tons.”

Annabeth suppresses something that resembles hope. “Let’s get started.”

* * *

She had inherited the Mimic ability when she killed a large blue one, a one in a million kill. Consequently, it’s blood mixed with hers and melted the flesh off her bones. She died that day and was reborn. She figured out that this was how the aliens knew humanity’s every move. Mimics could impossibly anticipate because they had the control. They always had the control. They learned while humanity fell further and further behind the curve.

Percy Jackson might change that.

While to Percy, every day is repeating, to Annabeth the day is linear. She has no memory of him every time he comes to her in the morning, telling her what he has been through, what she has done, how they died and started all over again. But she believes him because he’s their last chance at… something. Victory? That word is so distant, even reality has a hard time comprehending it.

She watches him from the sidelines of the arena. He’s strong, fast - reminds her of someone she once knew. She supposes every time she sees him, she has that exact thought. It makes her head hurt.

The model-Mimics are nothing like the real thing, but they do the trick. It helps Percy get to know their movements, learn how to counter and react. His Combat Jacket helps him jump, run, hit quicker and harder than any human could do alone, and he crushes the machines easily. He’s mastered the Jacket by now. What training he has left, she’s not sure. His abilities are the same of someone who has practiced for years. The exo-suit on anyone else would be awkward and uncomfortable. He wears it like a veteran.

By this time, when she had this power, she was without friends or answers. At least she could give him that much.

She had done things she wasn’t proud of during her time in the loop. Insanity was an easy thing to fall victim to, especially when there was no end in sight. Every time she looked in a mirror, she saw herself shrinking in her eyes, growing farther and farther away as the decades went by. She hated thinking of the person she had become. No matter what she did, no matter who she saved, none of it mattered. There was always that reset button.

In the later part of her loop, she got angry. Full to the brim of every possible frustration. Full of hate, anger, of rage. She had to protect the people closest to her, because she couldn’t bear to see them suffer on an endless cycle. So protect them she did, with all her heart.

She wishes she could go back and do it all again, as crazy as that may be. But she can’t, not after she slaughtered fifty-eight Mimics single-handedly in Verdun, protecting the closest thing she had to a brother. But she failed. And because of it, she felt the power leave her, felt a fear she had never yet known. She didn’t know what was going to happen next. That was what scared her the most. Before, she was afraid she was going to be stuck in the loop forever, now she is afraid that she doesn't know what’s coming.

The loop was predictable, safe. She had started depending on it. It was a cocoon of invincibility, because in the back of her mind she always knew she could try again. But not this time. She was on her own.

And on her own alone.

She’s ripped from her thoughts when Percy doesn’t see the robot Mimic come up and fake left and sweep right. He’s knocked back with an excruciating thud and the Jacket screeches as metal and metal grinds with Percy skidding to a stop against the wall. His leg is lying awkwardly underneath him.

Annabeth pushes the button to stop the simulation and slaps the back of her hand into her open palm for emphasis. “You cannot guess, you have to know.”

“My leg…”

From the back of her pants, she pulls a SIG from her waistband. She cocks the gun as she walks toward him. His pain is only temporary. “You have to remember or you’re back to square one. Understand?”

Percy, glistening with sweat, rests the back of his head on the cement wall. He pants, defeated. She holds the gun, leveling at his head. He doesn’t even flinch.

“Do you know why you need to make sure you die?” she asks.

“Because if I don’t, it’s over.”

Annabeth lets out a breath through her nose and her lips tighten over her teeth, masking a snarl. Not because of what he did, but because of what she hasn’t. “Don’t make the same mistakes I made,” she says.

He nods, understanding, and she pulls the trigger.

* * *

“Twenty steps, jump left, roll right,” he says.

“Twenty steps, jump right -”

“Jump LEFT.”

“Twenty steps, jump left, roll right. Jump left, roll right.” She writes it down. It helps her memorize. He has been through the battle that’s still to come. She hasn’t. At least not yet.

They are sitting on the tarmac at the edge of the base, sequestered behind palettes of ammunition stacked high enough so it feels like they’re in their own little fort. It mutes the rumble of trucks rolling down the street and the call of shouts at the gate to let shipments through. It also provides Percy enough cover to hide from his CO, who he’s been dodging all day. They’re preparing for the battle. The be-all, end-all offensive designed to win the war. Percy knows it’ll be a massacre, and Annabeth believes him.

Percy says, “Yesterday, you jumped right and…” He stiffens and stops himself short. She knows that look in his eye. He’s been resetting for a long time. Too long.

“I won’t this time,” she assures.

“You said that too.”

She goes quiet and hides a chill. Even if she doesn’t remember dying, the thought sits uneasily in her stomach.

“You know,” he says, “before all this, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. Now I feel like that’s double for me now.”

“You haven’t been getting the visions yet, have you?”

He looks at her, startled. “Visions?”

“Of the Omega, the brain of the operation.”

“Oh, so you’re not the brain of the operation?” His smile shines through.

She knocks him with her elbow. “Hilarious.”

“I’m serious. If you were me right now, the Mimics wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Annabeth swallows thickly. “Yeah…”

“But what about visions? Like, future stuff?”

“No, it’s different. You’re linked with the Mimic’s shared consciousness, but it’s a two way street. It’s basically going to try to reach out to you, try to take its power from you. But that means you’ll know where it is. If you can kill it, we can win.”

“You saw it?”

“I did,” she says. “But I couldn’t pinpoint it. It was somewhere dark, deep underground, and… I got out before I could see it again.”

“Well, you’ll be the first to know when I do.”

“Good.”

Percy’s gaze lingers on her a beat longer before he turns back to her list.

“What?” she asks.

“You, uh…” he says, casually. “You touch your scar when you think. I just noticed now.”

She hadn’t even realized. Her finger tracing down her forehead stops halfway. As if it were electrified, she rips her hand away and shoves it under her leg. He glances at her, out of the corner of his eye, and Annabeth does her best not to do the same. She stares at the notes on the pad and starts writing again.

“Let’s get back to trying to get through tomorrow,” she says.

* * *

“And you’re sure you saw it?”

“One hundred percent positive.” Percy has to shout over the gunfire. “It’s exactly as you told me.” Annabeth doesn’t remember doing so, but she has no doubt it’s true.

Annabeth has her back pressed up against the downed wreckage of a drop ship. Breathless, sore, she takes a moment to regain control. Her Jacket is telling her she’s low on ammo, so she steals a couple of clips from a fallen colleague. A gaping hole in his chest is all she sees of him.

It’s worse than a massacre. It’s an execution. Mimics fling themselves from the sand like slingshots, cartwheeling a path of destruction, leaving a wake of human blood that rooster-tails out from behind them. Their organic missiles whiz by like fireworks, exploding on impact, smelling like sulfur. She’ll never forget the sound they make: the Mimics when they kill, the humans when they die. Strangely enough, they sound the same.

She throws Percy a clip and he reloads. The machine gun attached to his arm is sizzling and smoking still.

“Where do we go from here?” she asks.

Percy makes a move to reply, but a memory lights up behind his eyes. In a flash, he dives in front of her and shoots, sending a Mimic screaming into the sand. He shoots it again, for assurance, and disposes of his clip. Sweat drips from his dark hair and he stands over the alien’s body. For a minute, Annabeth remembers that this isn’t his first day. She wonders how long he’s been here.

He lowers his head and looks over his shoulder at her.

“Follow me” is all he says.

He tells her to expect one at her five o’clock in thirteen steps, and she kills it at the same time he blows another into the sky with a grenade.

This is all Annabeth remembers. Her vision tunnels, her mind goes clear. Every soldier misses battle. Every soldier needs battle. She doesn’t know what to do when this is all over. She’s fire, she’s blood, screaming and sprinting into the fray.

Pain is a thing she gives, and a thing she gets. A tentacle lashes out and cuts her in the side, but Percy is there and he turns the thing to dust.

“Let’s go!” he barks and he’s running through puddles of a red ocean. Out here, the battle is quieter, farther away. She still hears the cries, the rolling thunder that is gunfire - ending too abruptly to know it hit its target. She knows she could go back, do what she does best, but Percy has led her away from it all. She’s no longer a soldier, but a hunter. She’s going to go with Percy to the very end, one way or another.

The sand turns into clay which turns into grass. France. She looks ahead of her, to the field of green stretching out far beyond on rolling hills, rising up like someone shaking out a blanket during a picnic. A picnic. Wow, she can’t remember the last time she’s been to one of those.

This country, once filled with a different kind of history, holds a new memory now. Its beauty is only made stronger by such horror its seen. World War III. Who would have thought France would fall victim to something worse than the Nazis?

Percy has slowed, a few steps ahead of her and turns.

“Come on,” he says, and if he knows what she’s thinking. “It’s not much farther.”

She takes a breath - sharp, winces - but she starts up again.

His definition of “not much farther” is an understatement. They run until the battery in their suits are to ten percent, then they walk. They walk long enough for the sounds of war to disappear, far enough away for Annabeth to hear it only in her memory.

They go for a mile, or two, and then Annabeth’s suit dies first. She emerges from within, free of its binding joints and metal bars. Exposed. All she can take with her is the assault rifle that was mounted on the Jacket and the knife which she tucks into her boot. The sun beams down, drying the dew on the grass, and Annabeth feels the warmth seeping in through her damp, rank t-shirt. It smells like her; it smells like war.

Percy still has a few minutes left in his, and they keep going.

They make it up a hill and stop at its peak. Lying before them is a sea of mobile homes, abandoned, decayed, evacuated. No life stirs, not even the wind. Beyond them is a mass of trees where a dirt road slices through it and disappears into the darkness of mid-morning calm.

“Down there,” he says, pointing to the trailer park, “are two vehicles that work. One is a Jeep, the other is a blue minivan. The Jeep gets us killed. I’ll run laterally along the perimeter, draw their attention. Mimics are waiting under ground here -” he draws a circle in the air to where she should look, then another “- and here. You get us that minivan and head toward the road. Just make sure to unhitch the trailer.”

“You actually sound like a tactician.”

“Learned from the best,” he says, his lip quirking.

Annabeth stamps down a smile. “Where are we going exactly?”

“Germany.”

“Seriously?”

“I know what I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“Snow covered mountains, a dam, German writing, then… it was there.”

“Mountains? You mean the Alps?”

“If that’s what’s in Germany, then yeah.”

Annabeth steels her jaw. She knows what to expect - a challenge. Her fingers curl around her weapon tighter. “Lead the charge.”

Percy bolts down the hill and turns right along the outer rim of the property, and Annabeth rushes straight into the maze of mobile homes. She sees the Jeep first and avoids it. There’s the sound of metal screeching, Percy obviously making noise. Annabeth can imagine that he tore through a car like it was paper.

The tell-tale sound of a Mimic waking up is unmistakable. Percy’s plan is working.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots blue. There, the minivan, tucked underneath a fallen tree. The mobile home next to it protected it from getting crushed. As quickly as she can, Annabeth rushes to the van and opens the door.

She hears a squeal and from the roots of the upturned tree a Mimic emerges, coming straight for her. It twitches, reading her, faking an attack as fast as a shutter on a camera. And Annabeth fires. It rolls out of the way and Annabeth dives into the car.

She slams the door shut and turns the key already in the ignition. The radio comes to life as Annabeth peels out and careens straight for the road. The van has no suspension, so Annabeth is bouncing with every nook and cranny in the grass.

A woman on the radio says, “ - attack. I repeat, London is under attack. Please stay indoors and remain calm. If you are in a vehicle, find shelter immediately. London is under attack -” The extermination is beginning.

The passenger side window explodes, a rain of glass, and Annabeth swerves as a Mimic clutches onto the side of the van. She grabs her gun and pulls the trigger. The Mimic growls but clings on. She pulls the wheel hard and scrapes against a sedan, knocking the Mimic clean off.

Annabeth scans the landscape, looking for any sign of Percy, but he’s nowhere to be seen. When she hears a thud on the back bumper, she looks in the rear view mirror and expects to see another Mimic, but instead she sees Percy pressed up against the glass, holding onto the van for dear life with the trailer bouncing behind him.

“Keep driving!” Percy screams, even though Annabeth has no intention of slowing down.

There’s gunfire and another Mimic is chasing them. She can see it in the sideview mirror but she’s already at the road. She yanks the wheel and turns onto the road, the trailer and Percy slide wide like a fish’s tail. Annabeth straightens out and twists in her seat. The Mimic isn’t letting up, but now that they’re on smoother terrain, it’s easier for Percy to unlock his SMG and rocket launcher and unload an entire clip into its body. Both the trailer and the Mimic are obliterated into a fiery wreck. The trailer breaks off and skids in a shower of sparks to a stop on the road as Annabeth drives onward. She stops only for a moment to let Percy into the car. He can barely fit, what with his Jacket taking up so much space.

“I forgot to unhitch the trailer,” she says, bashfully.

“You always do.” His smile is kind.

She takes them down the road and into the forest.

After miles upon miles of seeing no one else on the road, Annabeth thinks that maybe she and Percy are the last people on earth. It makes her wring her fingers around the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white. She glances at him and watches his face. It’s flat, ponderous, his features sober. She moves to say something, but she stops herself. She isn’t sure she wants to learn what he knows is coming. He shut off the radio a long time ago.

Finally, the van runs out of gas. But Percy says there’s a house nearby, and just in time too, because his Jacket is the next to run out of power. To think, they’re going up against the Omega with a couple of SCAR-Hs, a claymore, three grenades, and a bowie knife… They walk together through overgrown grass toward a white house with peeling paint and dark windows. There’s a barn in the backyard, and a porch in the front. The floorboards creak under her boots as she enters first, checking for movement through the sight of her weapon but it’s empty. But Percy knows that it is, based on the way he walks in without even looking.

“I’m starving,” he says as he moves further into the house. “You hungry?”

She starts to follow him, but winces again and stops. She puts her hand at her side and takes a breath. She has to keep going. Staying put for too long is not an option. But she already hears Percy rummaging through the cupboards, knowing exactly where to get what he needs. She finds him standing at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on a slab of bread, his gun lying on the tabletop next to him. Annabeth hides the pain in the side and straightens her back.

“We should stay on the move,” she says.

“It’s fine. There’s no rush.”

“But the Omega…”

“The Omega isn’t going anywhere.” He holds out a sandwich for her to take. “Go on. Eat. You need your strength.”

She looks at it and then at him and takes the food. “Fine,” she says. “But we’re leaving in five minutes.”

Percy grunts, acknowledging that he heard her but doesn’t agree with her.

She takes a bite of the bread and goes out the back. The sky is blue, the sun highest in the sky. There’s no clouds at all, which stands out to her. For some reason, the lack of them makes the sky seem a lot bigger than she always thought. She finishes the sandwich in two more bites and walks through the yellow, dead grass and heads into the barn where little light creeps in.

She shuts the wooden door behind her and takes a breath. The air is musty and thick, smelling like rotting wood and stale water. Her side hurts a lot more now that her adrenaline levels have lowered. She puts her hand to her side and it comes away wet and sticky. The blood of others on her shirt has covered her own. She huffs. What a bother.

She had hoped to take a few moments in privacy for herself so Percy wouldn’t see what state she’s in. She would have to wrap it herself and…

There’s a shadow in the corner of the barn.

At first, Annabeth’s heart stops. It’s hulking shape looms, waiting, and Annabeth freezes. But then she realizes, this isn’t a Mimic. It’s shape is too round, covered in a tarp. Above it, the roof of the bar had been blown apart, leaving half of the barn open to the elements, but the sun still can’t quite reach in so she has to be certain...

She hurries forward and pulls the tarp down. What she finds makes her laugh.

“A helicopter,” she says, to no one but herself. Until she hears Percy come into the barn after her.

“Ah, you found it,” he says. He actually seems surprised. For once.

“We have to find the keys,” she says. “Can you fly it?”

“Fly, yes. Land? Still working on it.”

It’s small, one of those helicopter used for tours, and the hole in the roof is more than big enough to fly through. She’s certain it can bring them up the mountain to the Omega. Anything to save them the trouble of climbing a cliffside would do.

Annabeth scurries around the barn, looking through the tool box near the old car that was in the midst of being tuned up before its owner abandoned it, searching through a pile of dirty rags near an upturned bucket.

But Percy doesn’t move. “You’re hurt.”

“It’s fine,” she says, dismissively. “That’s not what’s important.” She still can’t find the keys, so she moves past him but he doesn’t join in the search.

“Come on! Help me,” she says.

“Annabeth…” His voice is soft, pleading. She can feel the sigh in her name and the weight it has on his tongue. He calls her Annabeth. He actually uses her name. Everyone calls her Chase, or Sergeant, or,  _shit_ , The Goddess - the goddamn symbol of the entire army - before they call her by her first name. She straightens and turns to him. The sun leaching in through the cracks of the wood behind Percy gives him a halo.

“Let me patch you up first,” he says. She’s only known him since yesterday. But to him…

Slowly, she nods. He takes her to the overturned bucket, has her sit, and says sternly "Wait here" before he heads back into the house. A few minutes later, he comes back with some brandy, steaming water, a stack of bandages and a sewing needle. He leaves the door open, giving them enough light to see by while still giving them the illusion of safety from being indoors. Taking a seat on the straw-strewn floor, Percy inches in close and waits for Annabeth’s approval to start.

When she lifts up her shirt, she sees just how bad she got hit. But Percy’s expression is neutral. She notices him look at her, as if asking for permission, and she nods grimly. She winces when he wets a bandage with the hot water and dabs it on the wound. She refuses to flinch, but Percy pauses, watching her expression with care, before he starts again, even gentler than before.

“I’ve got some coffee going, so we’re going to take it easy for a while, okay?” he says, almost a whisper.

“It’s really not that bad.”

Percy makes a face, jutting out his lower lip and raising his eyebrows. “You’ve got a high pain tolerance, don’t you.”

Annabeth doesn’t laugh because it hurts, but she wants to. “I’ve had my fair share…”

“You’ve never told me how you got that scar,” he says. “On your head.”

He doesn’t look up from his work. She should feel uncomfortable, or awkward, with a man being so close, intimate with her body. She could even feel his breath on the smallest of hairs on her skin. He’s a stranger, a nobody. He probably enlisted with the rest of the people looking to claim a piece of revenge for themselves. But she trusts him. How he got his power - through fate, or destiny, or some fluke - she wonders why him. Then again, why her? Before her ability, she was just a normal soldier. A soldier without a home. Then she became something else and didn’t need one. She wonders if Percy is the same.

He’s the same as she is.

“Trying to protect someone,” she says.

Percy is quiet. He hands her the bottle of brandy and has her drink. She takes a swig, relishing the warmth that follows, and lets out a heavy breath.

“Luke was -” she clears her throat “- family. Not really, but close enough. We’d been in it since the start, side by side ‘til the end. And seeing him like that… on repeat… with nothing I could do about it. It killed me a little bit every day, right there with him. If it wasn’t one thing, it’d be another, and then the next… And all around me, no matter what I did, everyone would die. It got to the point where I thought I had no control. I ran away, refused to fight, tried to find answers to questions I didn’t even know, and I always ended up back at the start. Every time.”

Percy starts the needlework. Talking helps distract her.

“Eventually, it got to the point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I did everything I could, and that Omega was just beyond my grasp… I got desperate, sloppy. I wasn’t thinking straight and, uh, there was this Mimic and it was headed right at us. I had beaten it so many times before, and…” Her gaze goes distant as she looks out through the barn door the world beyond. “I forgot, so it got him first… and then it, uh, got me. Threw me into an overturned truck. Cracked my skull wide open. I woke up in the med bay, with someone else’s blood running through my veins, and that was it. It was permanent. Luke was gone and I was… out.”

She can feel the needle tug at the skin on her side, but she takes another swig of the brandy. Percy bites off the string and ties it secure. He starts cleaning again, washing her skin with the warm bandage.

“So that’s my story,” she says.

“It’s quite a story.”

“You sure I haven’t told you that one before?”

“Pretty sure,” he says. “It probably feels like it, right?”

She watches him, skeptical.

“I just have one of those faces people like to talk to,” he explains. A timer dings from inside the house and Percy stands up. “The coffee is done.”

Annabeth lowers her shirt and Percy leaves the barn. She runs her hand through her hair, tracing the scar, and sighs. That’s not a great memory she likes reliving. But she has to. She had relived it so many times, it was like she was back in the loop all over again.

Percy returns holding two mugs of coffee. He shuffles over to her, careful not to spill, and hands her one.

“Two sugars,” he says when she takes it. But he holds up his finger and wags it, “No, sorry. Three. You take three sugars.” From his back pocket, he pulls out another packet and tears it open. He pours it into her mug and she stares at him.

It makes sense. It all makes sense.

“Jackson,” she says. He looks at her as he wads up the empty sugar packet, a pleasant smile on his face. “How many times have we been here?”

His smile falls.

“How many times?” she repeats.

He turns his eyes down to his own mug of coffee. “A few.”

“How many.” It’s an order. She can’t help the way her voice raises.

“For you, just this once. For me… it’s been an eternity.”

Annabeth’s stomach drops.

Percy puts down his mug and takes a seat on the floor in front of her. He notches the crook of his elbows in his knees and looks at her, those green eyes holding her while they’re drowning. She sees it all on his face.

“This is as far as you go,” he says, his voice low. “No matter what I do, you always die here. And there’s nothing I can do to stop it.”

“How?” Her eyes sting as much as her wound.

“There are three Mimics, waiting about thirty meters away from here. The moment you boot up that helicopter, they start coming for you.”

“You haven’t tried everything -”

“Yes. Yes I have. Believe me, I have.”

“Why do you even care?”

“Because I can’t let you go! I just can’t.”

“You don’t know me!”

Percy’s smile is awful. “You know that’s not true.”

Annabeth throws her mug of coffee clear across the barn, and it shatters on the floor. She’s furious, furious that he could be as weak as she was. “It’s not worth it. One life isn’t worth worrying about, especially not mine.”

“Annabeth, please. There’s a crawlspace in the house where you can wait and hide. There’s food and blankets. You’ll be safe there.”

“I don’t hide, Jackson!” she says. She’s on her feet. Then another thought almost brings her to punch him. “Give me the keys.”

Percy is now on his feet, his hand protectively on his back pocket and he holds his other out toward her. “Annabeth, calm down.”

Whenever someone says “calm down” it has the opposite effect. Years of training kick in and she grabs his outstretched arm and twists it behind his back. She knocks her knee into the back of his and he crumbles, yelping out at the sudden pain in his shoulder. She doesn’t let up.

She fishes around in his back pocket and hooks her finger around the keys. She yanks them free and lets Percy go. He falls onto the ground but by the time he gets up, she’s already in the cockpit.

He scrambles toward her but keeps his distance.

“Next time we’re just going to end up here again and we’re going to have to do this all over. Just do this for me. Change things.”

“In every time we’ve been here, has that ever worked?”

He goes quiet for a moment, allows her words to simmer. She knows that he knows she’s right. But he says, “I know your favorite color is orange. I know you like doing laundry and you hate the smell of flowers. I know you wanted to be an architect when you were younger, and I know your middle name is Rose. And I know how I feel about you.”

Annabeth’s heart catches in her throat. Wrong. He’s wrong. She narrows her brow. “Let me  _go_ ,” Annabeth says, her voice breaking. Her words are final.

Percy clamps his mouth shut, breathing heavily through his nose. He goes to speak again, but Annabeth turns the key.

The helicopter winds up and Percy swears as he runs in the opposite direction. Straw kicks up in the artificial wind. Already, she can hear the Mimics stirring over the whir of the blades. She grabs hold of the joystick and lifts off, but the Mimics are there. They hit the rotors with precise missile strikes and the helicopter bucks. It topples sideways and the Mimics pounce. It’s a deafening combination of screaming steel and screaming bodies, and the blades spin straight into the ground, tossing up dirt and barn and everything in between. Annabeth doesn’t know how, but she’s thrown from the crash, like a rag doll in a tornado, and when she comes to, broken, pinned underneath the old car, it having slipped off its stilts, she has just enough time to realize what is happening.

The helicopter is dead, the Mimics are dying, she can hear the sound of an axe thudding over and over into flesh and Percy shouting obscenities over his rage as he finishes one off. And then it’s quiet.

Annabeth can hear the blood pounding in her ears, and she looks skyward to the hole in the roof, to the bright blue sky above, and feels numb all over. She knows she’s finished, and she wishes she’d die already, but Percy is suddenly there and he’s holding onto her hand. Mimic blood streaks across his face, mixing with the tears running down his face.

“Annabeth,” he whispers.

She can’t speak. She likes the warmth of his hand, the way he tucks her hair behind her ear, the gentle shush he makes that sounds like the ocean lapping at a sandy beach. God, why did he have to be this way? Why couldn’t he be stronger than her?

“My middle name…” she says, choking on her last second, “is May.”

Mimics are coming and Percy does nothing to stop them.

* * *

Annabeth only knows war. It’s the last thing left. Strangely, she finds it to be the only place where she can feel peace. But any soldier would know peace is the calm before the storm, and Annabeth isn’t just any soldier. She’s  _the_  soldier, the face of the human race rebelling against alien invaders. She knows there can be no peace, so long as the Mimics are alive.

But this kind of war, the kind that broils her gut, is the only kind of war that makes sense. It’s rule, it’s order. There is kill or be killed. There is no compromise, not with these things. Somehow war makes life seem a lot less complicated.

She breathes, keeping her body level with the ground, perfectly balanced. No one dares use the shooting range while she’s there, not because they might hit her, but because she will hit them.

Her forearms ache, tickling with the sweat that beads on her skin, and she shudders only when she lowers herself to the floor and breathes again.

But her day is interrupted the moment a green-eyed stranger walks in. He storms through the DO NOT CROSS barrier and runs directly for her.

Annabeth gets to her feet, anger flaring.

“What do you want?” she asks.

He freezes, standing before her like he realizes where he is, in the middle of the arena, surrounded by robotic Mimics clunking and whipping around them. He hasn’t bothered to get dressed, hasn’t even put on any shoes. Has he been sleep walking?

“Do I have something on my face, private?” she asks, challenging him to say something stupid. But he says nothing. She waits.

His eyes bore into hers and she’s taken aback. No one looks at her like this. No one. Her anger turns to confusion.

“Never mind,” he says finally. “Not this time.”

He turns on his heel and leaves Annabeth alone, his footfalls growing fainter with every step.


End file.
